


I miss that

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:38:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1500470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina misses how Henry used to call her Mommy, and Emma is annoyed at Mary Margaret's and David's baby fever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I miss that

Emma had gotten used to forgetting about Henry, but while he was away with Regina on Regina's Tour of Storybrooke, she kept wondering what they were doing. And which jacket was Regina wearing today? At Mary Margaret's apartment, David was asking her to help with the crib again, but she was distracted, staring at the directions without reading. 

When Regina finally dropped Henry off, Emma asked how it had gone and Regina gave a wry smile and said, "Swimmingly." 

"What?" Emma asked.

"We went swimming," Henry explained. "By the harbor. Also, she made me lasagna for lunch. Delicious. Cheesy and doesn't spend all its time cavorting with weird strangers."

"Henry, don't start," Emma said. 

Henry shrugged. "Anyway, thanks, Regina," he said, and Regina winced visibly. 

He wanted to play video games, and Emma told Regina she would walk her out; in the hallway, by themselves, Emma asked Regina if she was okay. "Of course I'm okay. He loved swimming. I did some magic at the harbor. He thinks he swan with a dolphin." 

"He thinks?"

"It was technically a dolphin. Just... well, it was Sneezy in dolphin form." 

"Regina!" Emma said. 

"I'll turn him back later."

"That's not what I meant! I meant--" Emma took a deep breath to calm herself down. "I meant are you okay with the Henry stuff?" 

Regina hesitated, searching Emma's face for some kind of reassurance before confessing. "Well, it's not exactly breaking news. It's not Mary Margaret Hires the Wicked Witch To Delivery Her Baby. It's just still a little jarring when--when Henry calls me Regina."

"Regina instead of Mom," Emma said. 

Regina gave a minimal nod. 

They stood in silence in the hallway, Regina hugging her stomach. Emma saw she was getting lost in memory. "What else?" Emma asked her. 

"Sometimes, when he was sick, or hurt, or really scared waking up from a nightmare--he would call me Mommy. When you showed up, he was starting to getting too old for it, he very rarely did it, but even then, sometimes--"

"You were still his Mommy."

At the word, Emma saying it, Regina's face broke. She looked softer, and sad and happy at the same time. "I miss that," Regina said. "I miss that all the time." Emma reached out to touch her arm but Regina pulled away and regained her composure. She cleared her throat and said, more to herself, "He's practically a teenager now. He wouldn't be saying it any more anyway." 

"Will you take him out again soon?" Emma asked. 

"Yes. Whenever he wants."

They said goodbye, and Emma watched her walk away. 

*

The next morning, David and Emma finally successfully assembled the crib, celebrating by drinking mimosas in the kitchen. Mary Margaret stood over the finished product, touching the bars with a dreamy look on her face. David asked her what she was thinking and she said, "I'm thinking of all the songs I'll sing to her. Or him. To help her sleep."

"Or him," David said. 

"Just as long as it's healthy," they said in unison. 

Emma rolled her eyes and poured more champagne into her juice glass. Last night, Hook had cornered Emma outside of Granny's, drunk and weeping, trying to confess something to Emma but not able to. Emma had tried to understand at first, asking gentle questions, then eventually had grown annoyed and tired, unsure how to reassure him. She had called Mary Margaret to try to tell her, but Mary Margaret had wanted to go through her list of top potential baby names. 

Now, as she watched Mary Margaret's face light up imagining her baby in the crib, Emma felt a burst of something, twisting and angry. She thought how she would have to get herself to sleep later that night, alone, turning the off the lights and crawling under the covers. It had been so long without comfort that she forgot how to want it. 

"Next, we'll need a blanket for her! Or him!" David said. 

"I know just the place," Mary Margaret said. "They have this organic muslin--" She and David put their coats on and were about head out the door before they stopped to check in with Emma. 

"Come with us, Emma," David said easily. 

Mary Margaret seemed to more acutely sense the awkwardness of the situation, hesitating. "...Or do you need to be waiting for Henry to wake up--"

"--Waiting for Henry to wake up," Emma rushed. 

When she heard the door shut she got up and dumped out the rest of her extra-strong mimosa in the sink. She approached the crib cautiously, thinking she could touch it like Mary Margaret had touched it, and then she would feel something like love, how Mary Margaret loved the child she was waiting so desperately for. But when Emma reached out her hand, the flash of anger returned, and she pushed at the crib. She kept pushing. It skidded forwarded, scratching the floor. She kept pushing. It slammed against the wall with a thud, rattled for a moment. Maybe it would break, Emma thought, but it didn't. 

There was a weight inside of her, pulling at her, making her feel smaller and smaller. It was familiar and maybe this in its own way was like comfort. She lowered herself onto the floor, leaning her back against the wall and pulling her knees to her chest. She hid her head in the space between her chest and her thighs. When she was a little girl, scared in whichever chaotic and unfamiliar foster home, she would sit like this. It felt the safest. Like if she got small enough she could just disappear. Emma squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the feeling to pass. 

*

Emma was disoriented, and surprised, when she heard a voice saying her name. 

"Emma? Hey, Emma." 

The voice, female, was low, gentle but still urgent. 

Emma tried to figure out where she was. On the floor, leaning against a wall. She realized her eyes were still squeezed shut, her head still tucked down. She opened her eyes and looked up. There was a face only centimeters away from hers. 

"Regina?" she asked thickly. 

"Emma, what's wrong?" 

Emma ducked her head again. She knew she was doing something wrong, that she needed to push past this, wake up, be okay again. Act normal again. But she felt a hand touching the top of her head, tentatively, then stroking her hair, and she was so exhausted, like she had been crying for hours, though she didn't think she had been. 

"Shhh, it's going to be okay. Emma, you're safe. You don't have to be scared. I promise." 

There was a rustling next to her, a sudden movement, then something soft, a very light weight, resting against her legs. 

"Look, Emma, look who's here to help keep you safe too." 

Emma opened one eye and cocked her head to the side to get a look. There was a teddy bear, now, next to her, chestnut brown, with beady eyes, and a red bowtie.

"How..." Emma whispered, grabbing onto him. 

Regina smiled, warm. She winked at Emma. "Magic." She said it like it was their secret. 

 

*

It was months after--in a moment when their world was normal, when Henry remembered Regina, when Regina and Emma had become lovers--that Regina unlocked, again, that part of Emma that had, mostly, stayed underneath everything. They were celebrating Emma's birthday, renting a room at Granny's for privacy's sake. There had been a scattering of rose petals on the bedspread, they suspected from Ruby, who knew about them though Granny did not. 

They were having sex--Emma lying on her back, Regina over Emma, reaching a finger into Emma, and then two, and then three, thrusting with an easy force that still rattled Emma--when a wave hit, not an orgasm, some rising and inescapable vulnerability that Emma knew how to push back down. She grabbed Regina's hand and stopped her, flipping Regina over, pinning her arms down. Regina's eyes lit up and she said, baiting Emma, "Oh, Sheriff, you're so strong, but do think you're tough enough to teach a bad girl a lesson? I don't think you know would know how..." 

Emma fucked her until she came, probably more than once, and she was saying, "Emma, stop, stop!"

Emma didn't stop. "You know the rules. You have to say please." 

"Please stop. Please, oh my god, please stop."

Afterwards, Emma held her and they reminisced about the first time they had kissed, when Robinhood had fallen asleep in the middle of sex with Regina and Regina had texted Emma to complain, and they met for a drink, which turned into a lot of drinks, and Emma had said she thought she was more manly than Robin, and Regina had said, "Prove it," and had kissed Emma rather aggressively. 

Regina rose from the bed, putting on a bathrobe, tying it, then checking her hair in the mirror and looking at her phone for any messages. When she turned her back to Emma, Emma was overwhelmed, irrationally. "Come back," Emma begged her. There was a rising panic in her. She remembered how hard it had been to fall asleep before Regina. The nights farther back when she taught herself how to stop crying. 

It was just an email about an upcoming town meeting, Regina explained. "It will only be a minute, dear," she reassured Emma. But she still didn't turn around. 

Emma waited, willing herself to calm down. She counted to ten, then to 30, then to 60. A minute turned into 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Regina sat at the desk and kept typing on her phone. Emma was getting increasingly impatient and angry that Regina had dismissed her, had lied to her. Her work was more important to her than Emma. Henry was more important than Emma. Magic was more important than Emma. Her wardrobe, though fantastic, was more important than Emma. She knew it. She wasn't important to anyone. 

"Mommy," she whispered, first only to herself. 

Regina whipped around. "What did you say?"

Emma was small again, lost, drowning in a world that still terrified her, but this time, in the room above Granny's diner, she fought the urge to curl up inside of herself. Instead she reached out her hand to Regina. When she spoke her voice surprised her because it sounded so young, and because it sounded like somebody she had once known but forgotten. "Mommy, will you come back?"

Regina came back.


End file.
